Day 9 Exmouth – Geraldton

We are now heading 60NM out to sea into the Leeuwin Current to deploy another weather buoy for scientific meteorological purposes. We are running a competition for somebody to name the buoy and then the winner will get to be the one that deploys the buoy over the side tomorrow, when we have reached our required co-ordinates.

After lunch all hands are required on deck as we need to reef the main and fore topsail. On the fore topsail we have; Lucy, Julie, Aaron, Byron, Fitzy, John and Rod and then on the main topsail we have; Nat, Johno, Rebecca, Danielle, Wilko, Ashley, Nita and Amy. Once everyone is down from aloft we get the reefed topsails set promptly and enjoy a busy afternoon
sailing.

We have still got 230NM to cover before we arrive into Geraldton and with the wind still blowing in the wrong direction we are left with no choice but to hand the sails after dinner and revert back to the Iron staysails. It has been an excellent day with sailing off the anchor, wearing ship, reefing the topsails and plenty of action with sail handling. After the sails are handed most of us go up aloft to furl, it is dusk and so a beautiful time of the day to be up aloft and have the bright stars gradually break out into the multi-coloured sky. Leonie even spots her first ever shooting star.

The morning’s routine is different today, as we reach the destination for the buoy deployment at 0845 and latitude; 25°30.555’S Longitude; 112°00.398’E. Shortly after breakfast, but before the morning meeting all hands are called on deck to find out who the competition winner is for the name and deployment of the buoy. “Investigator” is the winning name and Fairlie is the brains behind the name. “Investigator” is named after HMS Investigator, which was a Royal Navy ship commanded by Matthew Flinders and commissioned to survey Australia and was the first ship to complete a full circumnavigation of Australia from 1801-1803. This expedition was urged on by Sir Joseph Banks who was the botanist onboard HMB Endeavour. So there is a lot of relevance for us to name the buoy “Investigator” as we now circumnavigator Australia 200 years later and knowing that the buoy will be surveying the Leeuwin current.

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About Endeavour Crew

The replica of Captain Cook's tall ship HMB Endeavour is managed by the Australian National Maritime Museum. Endeavour regularly sails in Australian waters and we keep a ship's blog to give you an insight into life on board.